Ealier today we reported on a mysterious ‘Project Goldfinger’ we discovered during a tour of Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory. Everyone including Elon Musk claimed to have no idea what it was, but I’ve got a few ideas.
Of course Goldfinger is the seventh original James Bond novel by Ian Fleming and the third James Bond story adapted to the film franchise in 1964. The film was the most successful and popular movie in the world for awhile, and single-handedly launched both Sean Connery and the Aston Martin DB5 to super-stardom.
The novel involved a plot hatched by a supervillain megalomaniac named Auric Goldfinger who was obsessed with gold. The plan in the book was just to steal the gold from Fort Knox and load it on a train.
The movie improved on what was a glaring plot hole (how do you get a train-load of American gold out of Kentucky without all of America stopping you) by having our supervillain irradiate the gold in Fort Knox so his personal gold stash would gain more value in the world market.
So based on the book and the movie, here are some ideas as to what Elon Musk and Tesla’s ‘Project Goldfinger’ might actually be, maybe:
- A plan to irradiate the “legacy” American automotive industry with nuclear explosions
- A plan to steal the world’s supply of lithium to meet the ridiculous (and some speculate impossible) amount of the rare alkali metal needed for Tesla’s battery production
- A plan to irradiate the world’s lithium supply to make Tesla’s secret private mines more valuable
- A plan to develop a special edition model that Tesla can get away with calling “Pussy Galore” based on the character in the Bond story
- A plan to create a Tesla made entirely out of gold, like the Rolls Royce made of gold in the Goldfinger film
- A plan to make an entire Rolls Royce out of gold
- A plan to make an Aston Martin DB5
- EJECTOR SEAT
- A plan to make a giant laser-cutting table
- A plan to finally make the actual ‘submarine’ Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me Elon Musk bought from auction into a real submarine car
- A (completely reasonable) plan that’s just a codename for the upcoming crossover based on the Model 3's new platform
- A (completely reasonable) plan to develop technology for a fleet of self-driving vehicles just like every other company in the auto and tech industries
- nothing
As we said in the original post, Elon Musk shrugged the ‘Project Goldfinger’ sign we saw off as “probably” a joke. That’s what he wants us all to think until we wake up and suddenly all of the Earth’s lithium is missing.
Whatever ‘Project Goldfinger’ is, if it’s anything at all, it sounds like it will be the most popular but surprisingly boring plan in a never-ending series of mediocre and repetitive plans that will struggle to stay relevant through changing social and cultural shifts for decades to come. I’m already a fan.